LETTER ELEVEN It’s not ideas that count, it is the execution of those ideas. Every day of your life, as a creative person, you are going to be assailed by your mind with 227 ideas. (There’s no rhyme or reason for this number, yours is likely to be much higher.) The challenge as an artist is how [...][Continue Reading...]

Poetry is very personal and precious. Don't let your self-expression be squelched by others' opinions or reviews. Do you're poetry. If it pleases you, be joyous with that. If it pleases someone else, you've just had an answered prayer.[Continue Reading...]

Letter Eight If you’re talking about your work rather than doing it, you are letting out a lot of energy. This energy (joy, excitement, recognition, community, support) is better used by focusing on DOING the work rather than TALKING ABOUT DOING the work. It’s an easy concept, but it’s harder to learn and master. The [...][Continue Reading...]

Happiness is all about perspective and outlook for the future. And during my 40-something years on the planet, I have come across some models of centering, contemplation, recovery and joy that I feel it would be helpful to share. I am not planning a program or any type of revelation, merely an inner dialogue and revelation about some of my greatest comforts and simplest observations and lessons.[Continue Reading...]

I hope you find creativity in your life. And if I can be of any help to you, let me know. I am over here in my own tunnel of life, furiously creating myself, and I will share what I can of the light for us to forge ahead.[Continue Reading...]

Find your simple capture system for when the ideas come in inconvenient times. Then make sure you can rekindle the spirit from your capture, and that you can catalogue them and find them later, when you're in need of inspiration.[Continue Reading...]

If you are looking for art, and wanting to find a your unique voice, you have to bypass inhibition, and go for the darkness, the real free-falling, the overwhelming sensations that you cannot control. Even in you art (visual, musical, textual) you must lose control. It's the controlled loss of control that creates great art.
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If you are tired you may still be able to be creative, but your output and optimism will suffer. You have got to find what works for you. And perhaps what's working for you now, youth and hopefulness, might fade over the years and you will have to find other circuits for your "juice."[Continue Reading...]

Things like sleep, play, exercise, love, day dreaming are essential elements to finding your balance in life. And work, if it is not your art, can be a massive, but necessary, distraction that will keep you away from your real work. Seek out distractions like mind clutter and eliminate as many of them as you can.[Continue Reading...]

I wish you happiness, pain, and healing, and all the expressions of your art that are in between, beyond, and just ahead of you. And I wish for you to find your genius and know it. From this self-awareness you can continence to attempt the mountain top for the rest of your life. May you never stop seeking the top.[Continue Reading...]